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Backyard Manifest Destiny

Manifest destiny was the belief widely held by Americans in the 19th century that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. I am becoming convinced that the same can be applied to chickens and our backyard. Our backyard is the wild west, just waiting to be settled and conquered. Our chickens are the settlers/conquerers.

How have we made it to this point? Here’s the recap: we purchase a coop on wheels, thinking we can move it all over the yard. The coop turns out to be nearly too heavy for one person to move with super wimpy wheels that probably won’t last a season of moving it around our lumpy yard anyway. Still, all seems well – until we go on vacation and three of our four chickens cook in the heat of their attached run. We vow to free range the chickens and look for ways to provide them with more cover. Then we have a hawk run-in AND a chicken escape in the span of two days.

The latest revised plan, then, is to give the girls as much free range time as we can, provided we are physically with them, and make their run able to sustain them happily otherwise. We also wanted the run to be secure so we can someday go on a weekend trip somewhere. Wouldn’t that be amazing? A trip! Away from the house! For more than an afternoon!

We started with this lovely little coop.

The coop, pre-chicken.

After yesterday and Chris’ mad know-how and building skillz, we have this brilliant piece of backyard manifest destiny!

Laying out the extended floor. We’ve added 32 square feet of space to their run.

While Chris continues to attach the sides and roof, I do the VERY important work of documenting the view.

All done! Look at that sexy door. We also filled up the new section with dirt and grass clippings to encourage the girls to scratch for bugs and to help level the floor a bit as it sifts down through the wire.

Dino Puppy and Beaker, the Easter Eggers, take a stroll.

Construction can be hard on a chicken. I call this one, “If you can’t see me, I can’t see you.”

The finished product!

I think they’ll like it (also, look how GIANT Edgar, the Australorp, has gotten! And how little Little Red still is).

All this… and can you believe we’re STILL waiting for our first egg?! Jeez, chickens.

We thought we wanted three… so we ordered four chicks… then three of them died in the horrible heat this summer… so we got four more. Five healthy chickens in the backyard at the present! They are like Gremlins in water.

OMG, it’s KILLING ME!!! But, to be fair to the chickens, they did get sick. Then, since we have a variety of ages, we have been feeding them developer feed rather than layer feed and supplementing their rations for the older girls with calcium. So they are growing much more slowly, most likely, than they would if we had had all the same age girls. I just don’t want Little Red’s kidneys to get all jacked from too much calcium!

Thank you! We actually bought the main coop off a fellow who was building them outside of Indianapolis. We’ve done a LOT to upgrade it, though, including this huge expansion. We filled the extended part of the run with clippings from the yard and a downed tree branch, and the girls are loving it!